


Shards

by nekonexus



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-11
Updated: 2010-04-11
Packaged: 2017-10-08 21:17:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/79597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nekonexus/pseuds/nekonexus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Zuko is completely unable to reason certain things through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shards

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers, in the form of quotes from: ep 2x17 (Lake Laogai), ep 1x13 (The Blue Spirit), and season 1 finale (The Seige of the North pt 2).

_"... You never think these things through!"_

Zuko knows his Uncle is right. He doesn't think. He doesn't want to -- or rather... His plans are plans of action. Straightforward. To the point. He doesn't want to lay out strategies, to cover all possible angles. He doesn't want to _scheme_...

Azula thinks these things through. He cannot -- _will_ not -- be like his sister. She is cold, calculating, heartless, like the lightning she commands. _(She always lies.)_ She doesn't need anything; has never needed to prove herself. People bow before her because it is her right, she was born to it.

He was born to it, too, but...

_(I need...)_

Deep down, Zuko knows that his is the childish path. What he wants has been snatched from his hands so many times that he cannot look beyond attaining it, cannot calculate how to _keep_ it. He is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure.

_(Twice now...)_

"If we knew each other back then, do you think we could have been friends, too?"

He has always been alone. _(Except for mother... except for Uncle...)_ He has seen "friends" turn on him, because of who he is. But he does not know how to be anything other.

He wants his birthright restored because it is all he knows. He wonders sometimes, how Uncle accepts it all so placidly. How he could give up... why he didn't fight... why he doesn't _want_....

Zuko doesn't want to understand. Because he thinks _(except he doesn't)_, that if he understood...

_(**My** throne, **my** kingdom... but Uncle never says a word...)_

He doesn't want to think about these things. He just wants to _do_, to bend the world to his will for once, to prove that he, too, is capable of it. _(Nobody listens. Nobody respects me...)_

"You had him, and then you had nowhere to go!"

Uncle's voice won't leave him alone, but it's all right. He's grown accustomed to it. Being angry at Uncle is better than the alternative. Anger keeps him warm, keeps him alive. He does not want to listen to the cold, cold hiss of Azula's words. Her lies would lull him to sleep, and he would freeze, alone...

_(Twice now, he's saved me...)_

He does not understand the Avatar, either. He cannot see how compassion toward all beings is possible _(even if I tried to save Zhao)_.

Too many pieces, too disparate. The edges are all sharp and there is no way that Zuko can see to fit them together. He can't even hold them all at once without it hurting, deep down, where it can't be fixed.

_"I'm begging you, Prince Zuko!"_

Uncle loves him, but Zuko's title remains, a wall between them. _(As it should be, but...)_

He's tired of thinking. Tired of not thinking. Tired of being confused, and feeling like he lacks... _something_.

_(So tired...)_

"A man needs his rest..."

But at times like this, Zuko doesn't dare sleep, for fear of losing something he can't reclaim.


End file.
